A Killing Frost

I'm seeing lows of 28, 24 and 32 in the upcoming diagnosis. A killing frost may be lurking out there. It's only about a month late. There doesn't look to be any enduring cold coming with it. It's not quite winter yet.

My grasses could use a good freeze drying. It helps them stand through the winter when they have a chance to dry before they get pummeled with a heavy snow. In the barren time every bit of winter interest helps.

The winter under garden of a low mounding tapestry of texture and color on the slope below the cozy cabin is slowly coming along.

The right side was planted a good two years before the left and has a bit more substance at this point. It will take a few more seasons to even things out and for the whole thing to grow into the vision that lives in my head.

Parts of this little garden project are truly the slowest to become that I have experienced in my entire gardening life. I have a very long gardening life with a lot to compare it to. My client's gardens grow faster than this.

The reasons for this are multiple; elevation, shade, a long barren period, competition - I let the wild things go wild, a big garden to fill and a lack of time, money and interest for proper beds. The use of dwarf cultivars slows things down enough before the previous list piles on.

This could be an annual lament for many more years in the transition to the barren time. It's always a shock to go from the Lush to the barren and only find a baby garden hiding underneath.

Patience. Grant me patience and a life long enough to see it happen. Now I must do winter.

Happy Birthday Bulbarella

My dear sweet mother turned 88 today. She still climbs through her mountain top garden planting and weeding on a near daily basis, weathers depending. One of the last things she did before heading south for the winter was plant a box of minor bulbs she forgot she had ordered. This apple didn't fall far from the tree at all. I forget where I plant half the bulbs in my own garden.

Happy Birthday Mom.

A Day Without Sunshine

If this trend of non-stop wet continues after the cold arrives, there's gonna be a lot of snow this winter. I bought a new snow shovel before a panic sets in. Not that I intend to be shoveling a lot of snow mind you. A path to my truck parked at the top of the drive will suffice.

The barren time is here. The garden's bones, still small, are revealed.

My baby evergreen trees are still babies. They have yet to leap.

Remember when it was a Tall Flower Meadow? The winter garden is an etch a sketch of colored dots and lines on the earth. Slowly, ever so slowly, a designed composition takes shape.

A Day Without Rain

It was cloudy and extra cool, but at least it wasn't raining. I put on some long underwear and got to chopping and dropping while the opportunity was there. The better to contemplate the under garden. More rain is scheduled to begin tonight.

The sun even peaked through on occasion.

One goal of cleaning up the roadside vegetable garden was accomplished. Now I can add more dung and wood chips. I still have potatoes and parsnips to harvest. There are even a few carrots, one chard and a big patch of parsley.

An added bonus today was having enough rolled wire fencing to make cat scratch guards around two of my baby trees. Persistent scratching was ripping the cambium layer right of their trunks. Bad Kitty!

After I had chopped everything down in the driveway side bed I noticed they had started in on my baby Japanese Maple now that it is big enough to scratch. Bad Kitties!

Worse though, is that for the last month, every few days this black and white psycho kitty shows up and gets into a staring and howling competition with Button. They have only come to blows once that I know of. Miss Collar and Miss Dinah run for cover immediately.

I have never seen a cat act so odd. It won't run away from me. I can get quite close. It holds the same posture and snarling attitude towards me as it does towards Button. At first I fed it, but since it had such a rotten attitude I quit. Most stray cats I see up here move on pretty quick. Just when I think it is finally gone, I hear howling. Psycho Kitty!

At least it can't scratch my baby tree.

I have chopped and dropped most of the slope below the cabin where the bulk of the evergreen winter under garden is planted.

Last year I began extending the evergreen under garden further along the slope. It still has a lot of growing to do. Living inside the Tall Flower Meadow all summer doesn't help. Competition is a very real phenomena.

On a day without rain, I couldn't put off the chop and drop. The evergreens could use the sun even now. I still have two and a half acres of chopping to go. I should be able to get it  done by the end of February.

When All Else Has Fallen

Where The Native Witch Blooms

In the absence of frost, decay is slow.

In an abundance of wet, the decay is vibrant. Colors linger well past the average expiration date.

This ending is the signal for the Witch Hazel to bloom.

On the edge of a forest, high on a mountain, a grove of Witches perform an annual ritual.

Something is in the air.

It is more than decay.

The light changes. The magic changes.

Where the native Witch Hazel blooms.

Into The Mist Of November

The mist and rains began the same day the Sisters left after a perfect week. They haven't stopped since. It hasn't been very cool, but it has been very wet. November and rearranged time arrived in a mist.

The leftovers of autumn are all that remain.

The blue pot bamboo bottle tree gets more attention in the barren time. It's bone structure stands out.

Mist washes over the mountain first in one direction, before switching after the passage.

I drove south into the mist of November for my cousin's funeral. There is no way of knowing what time it really is for me.

Finding The Under Garden

One hundred camassia, twenty five tall, yellow, species lily and six eremurus got planted today. What will the garden look like next year? It's always a mystery.

The threatened rain wasn't amounting to more than intermittent mist. After the bulbs were planted, I kept gardening. There may not have been a killing frost yet, but the time of vegetation is essentially over. The Lush was looking ragged and I have an evergreen under garden of winter interest I wanted to find. I got to chopping.

I try my best to do some weeding around the under garden plants during the growing season. The most critical reason being they need the sunlight. I really need to be more ruthless. Everything was looking pretty good after five months of burial.

The slowest growers and the least robust are the Emerald Spreader Japanese Yews, Taxus cuspidata 'Monloo'. I'm not sure why they are acting so fussy. Their description at Monrovia implies a tough, no fuss plant of moderate growth rate. Maybe next year, year three, they will leap.

With no killing frost, this is what I get from one of my Japanese Maples. The forest is nearly naked and the Japanese Maple is in full color two weeks later than everything else. I guess I can expect this once every seven years. Nice.